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X-RAY PHOTONICS

A free-electron laboratory coherent X-ray source

Nature Photonics volume 14, pages 655–656 (2020)Cite this article

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Facilities generating coherent X-rays tend to be large scale and costly. Now researchers have demonstrated a parametric and coherent laboratory-scale X-ray source by passing moderately energetic electrons through van der Waals heterostructures.

The number of such X-ray research facilities is growing all over the world, and chemists, biologists, physicists, archaeologists and art scientists perform research using specialized experimental stations located around the storage ring. Nevertheless, the brilliant radiation is rare and costly.

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Fig. 1: Scaling of the electron velocity, velectron, and the relativistic parameter, γ, for different X-ray sources.

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  1. Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Jena, Germany

    Ingo Uschmann

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  1. Ingo Uschmann
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Correspondence to Ingo Uschmann.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Uschmann, I. A free-electron laboratory coherent X-ray source. Nat. Photonics 14, 655–656 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-020-00710-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-020-00710-w

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